


Where We Go at Night

by thechinskyguy



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23761327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thechinskyguy/pseuds/thechinskyguy
Summary: After Lance and Proton's hush-hush date is ambushed by a Team Rocket attack, they take retreat in the wooded recluse of night, where feelings start to fly in the face of danger. Continuation of This Thing We Keep/When We Need.
Relationships: Lance | Proton/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 5





	Where We Go at Night

The sunset flight away from the Alistair Cafe had long ripened into silence. The chill of the evening wind only intensified the longer they flew, and though Lance and Proton were fully clothed the cold still bit into their skin. 

Proton suppressed a groan; the cold was almost as bad as the growing migraine from the evening’s wine. Even with Lance’s back to him, Proton felt the tension and anger grow as Dragonite began his descent back to earth. The dragon champion had been silent the entire flight, and apart from asking him a few questions met with icy glances, so had Proton. 

Dragonite landed along a darkening treeline with a stark thud, and the two dismounted to take in their environment: a thin forest behind them, bleakly lit with the glow of bug pokemon, opposite a flattened plain. The wind now brushed lightly, not nearly the same kind of chill so high up. 

“Lance, where are-”

“We’re taking cover in the forest,” Lance shot, hardly turning to acknowledge him. A red beam of light lit up the sky, swallowing Dragonite back into his Poké Ball before they were plunged back into what was now darkness, the sun having nearly fully receded. 

The champion strode quickly into the trees, the tail of his cape taking flight behind him. The warm, beckoning figure that’d convinced him to dinner, opened himself up for Proton - and only Proton - had eroded. 

The Rocket executive broke into a jog to keep him within sight. “Hey, what gives?” he shouted. “You know that wasn’t-”

Lance about-faced, his shadowed stride approaching Proton with a threatening leer. “What gives,” he snarled, the distance between them narrowing, “is that I almost got murdered because of Ariana trying to obliterate us!” 

Before Proton could open his mouth, he felt Lance’s talon grip connect with his shoulder, pushing him back into the rough bark of a cypress tree. Even in the near-midnight darkness, Proton could see the glowing explosion of anger in the champion’s eyes. 

If only they weren’t glaring murder directly at him. 

“If you’re going to convince me that you weren’t somehow involved in setting up that attack,” Lance hissed, “you had better do it right. Now.”. 

“I wouldn’t have done that!” Proton gasped, struggling to find leverage. “I didn’t bring you to that dinner to try and lure you into anything!” The weight bearing into his upper body intensified, squeezing the breath from his lungs.

“Oh, so you held me hostage in your office, brought Ariana and the Rockets out to the exact restaurant we happened to be eating at, and I’m not supposed to believe that it wasn’t a ploy?” The champion’s voice kept rising, almost to a near shout. “She was trying to kill us, and - hell, she’s probably trying to hunt us right now!” 

His jaw quivered. “Lance, I didn’t think that she--”

“No, you didn’t think at all! This isn’t about Team Rocket having a price on my head. You realize that there were witnesses? People who saw us on the scene, at the Alistair?” 

Proton fell silent, a subtle gust of sheer wind at his back.

“People are - god, people are gonna know we were together, it…” Lance trailed off, and the fire in his eyes began to air away. Proton could only stare back at them, dejected. 

“I...I swear on my life, Ariana acted rogue,” Proton said as he pushed himself away from Lance, if only to catch his breath. “I don’t even think Giovanni would’ve known about this.”

The champion fumed, his eyes turning back to Proton, his hand clutching onto Dragonite’s Poké Ball and raising it towards the Rocket executive. “Rogue or not, this is still your fault.”

Proton’s face sunk; Lance’s eyes had gone as cold as the night’s wind, but they cut into Proton deeper than when they were white-hot. 

“Lance, I - “ he reached for his own Poké Ball with a forlorn hand, “I can’t hurt you. Please don’t do this.”

In a brief moment of earth-shattering stillness, the wind had ceased, and though the night still sat cold, nothing lay in between the two. Lance’s marbled face still steamed, Proton’s still pleaded; even without words, both understood each other for just how much they’d stripped themselves raw for each other.

Lance’s hand slowly lowered, pocketing Dragonite’s Poké Ball, his expression softening with the slightest breath. “Let’s keep moving, then,” he said, his voice low in concession. “I want as much distance between us and whoever might be looking for us as possible.”

Proton nodded, following suit. “Right. We also need to figure out how to make it back to Rocket HQ - or, the League in your case. You think they’re gonna look for us there?”

“Yeah, but...one thing at a time, Proton.” 

With Lance’s back to him once again, the two men ventured wordlessly through the pitch-dark forest, with whatever moonlight that pored through the trees dimming the longer they went on. Besides Lance calling out branches in their path or ruts on the ground to step over, and the occasional protest from Proton about the patches of mud collecting on his boots, they made the journey in silence. 

Soon, the silence broke from the waking nocturnal pokémon - Ledyba, Ariados, and the sporadic fleeting Murkrow fluttered and chirped from the trees and the skies, filling the gaps between Lance and Proton’s unspoken words. 

“We’ve been walking for almost an hour!” Proton finally whined, eliciting a sharp glare from Lance. “I know we’re laying low, but we’re not going completely off the grid!”

“We may as well be,” Lance said, their hike finally pausing as he leaned against a tree to cough. “While we figure out how we show our faces again without Ariana blowing us out of the sky, I’d rather we do it with some privacy.

Proton pouted, slumping his back against a tree and falling to the ground. The exhaustion of being fugitives on the run finally began to set in; his throat was patchy and raw, and Lance’s new bursts of coughing meant he was in the same camp, too.

Lance leaned against a tree of his own, taking out his Poké Gear. “Well, we still have reception, at least,” he sighed, folding it and placing it next to him on the dirt. “I’m trying to think of our next move. Who we talk to for help with sorting all this out.”

“I could call-”

“No. Not in a million years,” Lance interjected. 

“You don’t even know who I’m talking about!” 

“It doesn’t matter who, I’m not getting on the phone with someone that’ll only make this worse for us.”

“Alright, fine. Guess you wouldn’t have listened to me, anyways.”

Lance sighed. “Who would it have been, Proton?”

“Petrel. He--”

“No.”

“.....fine.” 

Proton blinked. “Wait, how’d you get your Poké Gear back, anyways? One of my men told me it’d been left at the Alistair when we’d grabbed you.”

“I know the owner quite well. She was able to hold onto it for me once she’d found it on the patio.” He paused for a chuckle. “That’s why I chose that place for the initial meeting with your informant, and for our dinner. If I needed any kind of an out, she’d be able to help.”

“You mean she’s one of your G-Men agents, too?”

“Hey, I never said that.” Lance shrugged, his expression nonchalant and cool. “All I’m saying is that I was well protected. Not that I expected to need it at our dinner, mind you.”

Proton sighed, his gaze downturning to his feet. “Is that true? Or did you really think I’d try and, well, do something?”

The champion hesitated. “It’s not that I thought you would ambush me again. And keep in mind, you did ambush me earlier in the afternoon. It’s just...I needed insurance, Proton. Any champion in any region would need insurance, and any of them would’ve done the same as me. The fact that you not only succeeded in abducting me to your office, but convinced me to go out to dinner with you? Proton, that’s unthinkable for a champion to do.

He sighed. “And don’t get me wrong, I was having a wonderful time. Had it not been for Ariana, it would’ve ended up really, really well. But to act like there wasn’t any kind of security risk, none at all, would’ve been foolhardy. I know you understand that.”

Proton could only nod along with each word that Lance spoke. “Yeah, I get it. And, if anything, I guess you were proven right.” He turned his gaze up towards Lance, whose eyes studied him intensely. “I just wish I’d made this a better night, was all.”

Bzzz. Bzzz. 

Lance’s Poké Gear shuddered in vibration, and he glanced at the glowing caller ID.

“Private caller,” he read out loud, looking up at Proton. “These usually get filtered out. Do you know anything about this?”

The executive shook his head with a frown. 

Lanced looked down at his Poké Gear again, sucking in his breath before accepting the call, hitting a button to place it on speaker mode. “Yes?”

“Good evening, Lance,” a dark voice answered. 

“Giovanni,” Lance and Proton both mouthed to each other. Proton stood and motioned to speak to his superior, but Lance held up his free hand to cut him off.

“I would start by asking why Ariana tried to carry out an assassination attempt on your colleague and I,” Lance said, measuring each word out of his mouth with caution, “but something tells me you’re not so sure yourself.” 

“Her attack was not on my order, or anyone’s,” Giovanni said. “Believe me, destroying a public establishment so visibly is hardly what I consider to be effective.”

“It’s borderline terrorism. Regardless of who gave the order, there’s still so much room for the League to come after your organization for--”

“I’m well aware of the implications,” the syndicate boss interrupted, “as you should be, too. Being seen in such a...private context with a Rocket Executive? The press would love that.”

Lance grimaced. “How did you get this number?”

“I want to speak with Proton.”

“I’m not asking again. How did you get this number?” He shot a disapproving glance, teeming with suspicion, at Proton.

“Your fax line isn’t exactly the most secure,” Giovanni said. “Now, please, let me speak to Proton.”

“Hey, uh, I’m here, boss,” Proton stammered, avoiding Lance’s murderous gaze yet again. “Listen, I’m really--”

“Sorry? Let’s admit it, Proton, you’re not. You’re not sorry at all about your little date with the Champion, and thought that you could get by without me or Ariana or anyone else knowing. Is that right?”

The executive, his face going as red as Lance’s cape, sighed. “You would’ve interfered. This wasn’t Rocket business, it was....off-the-record.”

“To pretend that ‘off-the-record’ is a privilege you have is idiotic. I don’t endorse Ariana’s actions in the slightest, but understand that you’ve acted well out of your boundaries as an Executive. Lance has been a high-priority target for years, and-”

“I’ve been what?” Lance interjected. 

“-and for you to release him from our grasp only to meet with him without my consent is utterly inexcusable.”

They all paused in silence; Lance’s arms folded tightly within themselves as he watched Proton shrink in his boots from guilt. 

The Rocket boss coughed. “I want you off of speakerphone.”

“We stay on speaker or we hang up,” Lance shot. “I’m the reason your colleague is still alive, Giovanni, and I have as much a voice in the conversation as you two do.”

“Where’s Ariana?” Proton asked, cutting off whatever Giovanni might have said. 

“I’ve ordered her to stand down, in what I would call no uncertain terms. I can assure you, she will have no interest in interfering with your plans moving forward.”

“Does that mean Team Rocket is off of my tail, too?” Lance said. “I don’t need to remind you that the League has no active investigations against your organization as of yesterday, and there should be no reason for any further Rocket intervention that would endanger myself or any League personnel.”

Giovanni chuckled darkly. “You have a stick up your ass larger than the entirety of our HR department, you know that, Champion?”

Proton stiffened. “We have an HR department?”

“Don’t come back to HQ tonight, Proton,” Giovanni ordered. “It’s probably best to keep you and Ariana separated for a while - and frankly, I don’t want to have to look at you either.”

Proton nodded meekly at no one in particular. “Thank you, boss. And what about Lance?”

“I suppose we’ll lay off of him for a bit. How’s that for you, Champion?”

“That’s fair,” Lance said. “Just as long as Proton returns to work safely.”

“Hmmph,” Giovanni said. “I can’t say I expected Proton would’ve gone through all this trouble for the Champion, nor you for him, but here we are. Have a good night, then.”

The line clicked dead, leaving the rustling of the forest around them to fill the silence. 

“That, uh, that could’ve been worse, right?” Proton asked, his voice peaking in anxiety. 

“I suppose,” Lance muttered. Without another word, the champion took the Poké Gear from Proton’s hands and threw it on the ground, his boot smashing it into jagged plastic shards. 

“What was that for?!” Proton demanded, stepping back a bit in shock. “We could’ve used that to call someone if we get lost, or-”

Lance turned back up to look at Proton again, the reds in his eyes flaring once more. “If he’s gotten hold of my phone number, then that’s all he needs to be able to track that device. I’m not taking that risk.” He began to walk off again, stepping over a branch onto a beaten dirt path.

Proton’s heart sunk far too low for him to even follow. “You think he’d do that?”

The champion stopped to turn to Proton. “I don’t trust him, and I don’t trust you. I-” his breath caught in his throat, and he looked nearly remorseful, “I’m sorry.”

The night had died. Lance stood still, a statue in the shadows, his face firm, though pensive. 

Proton closed his eyes, fighting back a tear, before gulping with a slight nod. “Alright. I’ll, uh, I’ll think we’ll call this a night, then.” Under his dirt-stained uniform, his skin stung from the cold as he released Golbat from his Poké Ball. 

“Wait,” Lance finally said just as Proton mounted his pokemon for flight. “Before you leave, can I....take you somewhere?”

Proton’s head swung in exasperation off of his neck in dead weight. “You haven’t made up your mind as to if you wanna strangle me or seduce me, have you?” he said. 

Lance shrugged, summoning Dragonite once more. “I’m not the greatest at setting expectations.”

“Promise this’ll be worth the heartbreak you just gave me?”

Their flight from there was a short one. Proton struggled to keep up with Dragonite’s sheer speed, especially under the low light. He nearly missed when he and his trainer ducked under another treefront, sloppily sticking his own landing with Golbat once he doubled back to find Lance.

If one thing had changed, it was that he could see Lance much more clearly. His red hair actually looked...well, red. Not so maroon-ish.

“Proton…you know where we are, don’t you?”

“Based on where we’ve been flying and walking, not really. Viridian Forest?”

“Not really,” Lance said, and the executive could still see the beginning of a warm smile creeping back onto Lance’s face. “This was the nature trail I’d mentioned taking you to.”

Proton let out a small gasp. “You...you still wanted to take me here?”

Lance chuckled. “Well, it helps that it ended up being something of a detour on our flight path earlier. I’m not sure where we would’ve landed if I’d flown in any direction other than west, but….here we are.”

The two cast their gazes upward; Proton couldn’t see much of a difference in the forest scenery, not at first. But speckles of light began to dot the trees, the smoothed walkway under their feet, even their own shadows. The colors of the flowers along the path, the reds and the blues and the occasional yellow dandelion, painted the scene brightly even in the nighttime dim. 

It may as well have been daylight.

“Why’d you still take me here, after all of that?”

“I promised you back at the Alistair, didn’t I?” Lance said smugly, pacing around nonchalantly. “I know it’s a little cold for a walk like I’d intended, but you still deserved to see all this.” He paused. “I guess you did help save both our lives, after all.”

Proton wanted to smirk, but he found himself in a stammer instead. “T-thank you,” he breathed. 

They spent another few minutes in silence, idly walking through the glistening trail. Proton could feel himself sighing with each chirp of the Kricketot that hid in the nearby foliage, his breath slow whenever Lance hummed along with their footsteps. This...this was what he’d wanted. 

“I’m sorry,” they both suddenly said at the same time.

“You first,” Proton said, rubbing his arm nervously. 

Lance sighed as they stopped walking. “I haven’t been fair to you. You put my life in danger, but you saved it, too. And maybe I have reason to be upset, but I do owe you for everything tonight. And I never thought I’d say that after a kidnapping attempt, but...hey, here we are.”

Proton nodded. “Yeah, well, it wouldn’t have all gotten so deadly if it weren’t for me letting it get out. And yeah, Ariana and Giovanni aren’t on our asses, but...but that still ruined things. 

Another pause. Lance nodded slowly, considering his words. “They were never ruined. But, they were never savored to begin with.”

Almost in concession, he sat against a tree trunk, looking up at Proton with increasingly sad eyes. “Tonight was nothing short of stellar, Rocket ambush and all. But this isn’t something we can just...do. Not without having to avoid the public, not without having to worry about repercussions from the League, or from Team Rocket.”

Proton sat next to him timidly. “Yeah, I understand. It hurts, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate tonight for what it is.”

“And what is it, exactly?”

“Everything I wanted it to be.”

They shared the silence again, Proton idly twiddling with a small daffodil between his fingers. “If you have to head home soon, I understand. I don’t want to keep you any longer - and it’s already way past when dinner was supposed to end.”

Lance gave a short shake of his head. “If you’re not heading back until tomorrow, then neither am I. You ever been camping?”

“You...sleep outdoors?”

The champion chuckled, standing up to unsheath his cape from his shoulders. “I can’t say that I blame you for being sheltered,” he said, “But to never have been camping? Sleeping out in the stars? Proton, you’ve missed out.”

He unfurled his cape, letting it fall and drape over the two of them. Proton nearly jolted at its weight; the heavy fabric weighed on his legs. How the hell did Lance keep this thing on his shoulders?

“Plus, the weather for outdoor sleeping is prime, yeah?”

Proton grinned. “Sure is. Thanks for, uh, tolerating me enough to want to actually bunk with me.”

Lance turned his body away, tucking a corner of his cape under his body for warmth. “Hey, the pleasure’s mine.”

The executive sighed lightly, letting his head rest against the tree’s base, his eyes gazing upwards at nothing. Sure, he might never get to have this night again, but that didn’t have to damper the one night they did have. 

He began to count the dots of light above him, and even as he fell into sleep he kept counting into infinity.


End file.
